A new road to the old lanes of Chandni Chowk

19-12-2012 |
nrupaldiffion |

Whoever said money can?t buy happiness simply didn?t know where to go shopping, once said an American actress. Who can agree more than all the shopalcoholics out there who spend hours in street shopping? So how about getting India?s biggest and oldest wholesale market right on your laptop screen, it?s time to welcome the Chandni Chowk market of the capital city to our e-commerce platform.

Google?s ?India Get Your Business Online? initiative, an attempt to introduce the small and medium businesses of the market to the internet, was launched in November 2011. Google India and webhosting service provider HostGator went to each shop and built over 2500 free websites and domains for the traders. The traders need to pay just the web hosting charges after a year.

Google has also come up with one single platform for all the shops on www.chandnichowknowonline.in, a directory for all the online shops taken online in this project. The online shops are listed in 24 sections such as Travel & Accessories, Agricultural products, Electronics & Accessories, Food products, Gifts & Novelty, Stationary products etc. on the home page. Once section selected, the consumers get to choose from a number of dealers in that category.

The history of Chandni Chowk market can be traced back to the 17th century; some of the businesses have spent more than 100 years in the market, but having a web presence never appeared to be a popular idea here. Mr. Pradeep Jain, spokesperson of the Kinari Bazaar Gota Zari Association said, ?This initiative from Google has provided all businesses with a professional website, which will now make it easier for customers to find us online and help us to grow our businesses.?

On the launch, Kapil Sibal, Union Minister of Communications & IT seemed optimistic about the major role expected to be played by Internet as an engine of economic growth in future, he said, ?I am happy to note that due to initiatives such as these, small and medium businesses are embracing the Internet to increase their competitiveness. I would like to congratulate all these businesses from Chandni Chowk who got a website from Google's initiative and hope that many more businesses will adopt the Internet.?

As to the future of this move, Rajan Anandan, VP & Managing Director, Sales & Operations, Google India said, ?We have created over 150,000 websites across 7,850 cities in India within a year. Next year, we expect to cover 300,000 businesses and by 2014-end, we will meet the target of 500, 000.?